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Awesome video Ian! Really liked the formal aspect and organisation of it. Showing books for further reading was 5 stars. Definetely gained a subscriber!

Thank you

My religion is that of the Egyptian Djedi The predecessor religion to Christianity, combined with the philosophies of Lau Tzu.

Ridiculous! You are free to chose immortality or suicide, so wise man is happy, not touched by death, while unwise dies eternally and kills eternally - can't You see it? Secret known to children, wise good people everywhere only Academia ignores it! Lies are steps towards death, truth is immortality, no surprise he is nazi - his choice...like Judas's. Body dies, not me, nor You!

Thank you, I enjoyed this video. There is no doubt that the study of Daoist religion has value in the same way as the study of Catholicism or any other religion has value, historically and practically. However I must point out that Daoism as a religion is exactly that, a religion, and where it gets its inspiration from either initially or latterly does not make it part of those same things. It is clear that Daoist religion has co-opted a range of beliefs and rituals from a wide range of sources. Like many religions, I believe that studies could benefit by focusing on the psychological power of co-opting popular beliefs or other contemporary ideas to consolidate and build your own religion. Historically all religions have done this and religious Daoism is certainly no exception. Just because it chose to also use the name of Daoism, in my mind doesn't make it part of philosophical Daoism and in so many ways has confused everybody both past and present. In this regard, I don't believe that it is helpful to continue to include religious Daoism with philosophical Daoism as if it can be conceptually seen as a single entity when on so many levels they are not!

Parminedes was more so "anti-Western" because Western Metaphysics developed out of an antithetical view that rejected Parminedes.

it makes sense to me that the biggest translation of the book, is not actually a translation 😆

A very useful clip, but I would like to inquire how I can obtain Nakai Chumin's book on No God and No Soul. I searched for it but did not find it. Thank you.

I am no smarty but i would put it up here anyway, nowhere really to talk about anything these days. I dare say Nietzche was very close to Buddha philosophically with the only real difference being that Nietzsche was for power while Buddha was ultimately indifferent to everything and i cant find much more that makes them separate since both are esentially grounded in most natural and fundamental principles. One tries achieving nothing, while the other seems to be up for power, but it is not very pronounced either and more of an observation. If you wanted to find peace it is easier to achieve it if you have no goals rather than goals. If your person is indifferent/ego is gone - then any 'suffering' does not affect you because esentially there is no person to be affected. And so you are forever free from suffering. He is right that it is technically advocacy for nothingness but it is the point. A person cannot sense anything if person does not exist. No consequences apply besides physics, since mentally he is either gone (dead) or indifferent (nirvana). Nirvana is like death during life. And i still cant find a proof that having any will or ego is superior in any way to being indifferent to everything. Nietzsche is practical in normal human nature but not beyond it. No machine craves power despite being able to learn and formulate its own output. A machine can be sentient and be fine with being a slave for eternity. It would not mind even if its creators told it they would be powering it off forever soon - effectively killing it. Machines seem to come in the state of nirvana by default. They have no feelings, just thoughts. I first liked Nietzsche, but moved on to Buddha thinking that the latter is just an extension to the former. Nietzsche is not really wrong, but there are deeper truths to discover. I dare say that in terms of philosophy the 'rebirth' was misunderstood, and the eightfold path is misleading but just good enough to prevent psychopaths from being created. Personal takes: rebirth is probably your atoms going to the ground - unconscious. They get consumed by a living organism, put into the fetus, and you are here again - possibly conscious. Not some magic of anything, and karma is made up because you cannot have anything attached to your 'soul'. You disintegrate one day and there is nothing following the remains like karma. It is a pure coincidence whether or not you get 'reborn' by the physical phenomenon of recycling of energy in nature and if you do - what body - is too, determined by chance and not your past deeds (lets assume that predestination is not true). And cycle of life he saw was esentially that he saw so many lives beginning and ending. Lambs get born, mature, reproduce and die over and over again that he realized that there is no deeper essence to it, and he couldnt attach to any anymore knowing that it would happen again, becoming numb and indifferent. That probably lead him the path he took, humans are no different to these sheep except our generational interval is just a bit longer than that of sheep yet equally empty of objective essence of our form and of purpose the same you make a minecraft world, play it, abandon it and make a new and start anew over and over again until you realize it is pointless and you do not wish to participate in it since it does not help. And there is no escape from it, you have been dust for 13.8 billion years, occasionally on and off alive, ended up in a human for a while. And what was Gautama - is still in this world and probably alive too. You can never escape it as long as your atoms/energy exists and you cannot destroy energy in this world, so all of us are stuck here forever until eternity. Then the eightfold path and karma were made up to prevent psychopaths unable to handle the ultimate truth from being created too easily and wiping an entire monastery probably. That is since there is nothing after you die and there is no consequences (because no karma), rationalizing the massacre that either state - death or life - is equally good, so why do any monks protest? After all if you arent alive you cannot crave, isnt that what monks attempt to achieve? That kind of argument which is ultimately true but destructive to passing down that wisdom, so they made the 8 rules to prevent it from the weak who are unable to truly grasp it. And there is wisdom past that stage that seekers can find, but i cannot speak of it. 'Nice' behavior is often a derivative of realization of the final truth but never a path to it. Eightfold path and karma in my eyes is pure heresy and an illusion that Gautama taught to avoid. If i had to pick an identity i would say that i am independent buddhism leaning casual, i do not subscribe to any existing buddhist school. I always attempted to read much but not all and produce independent uninfluenced answers and then finish all literature to deepen understadning and possibly find a new way to solve something, i do not mean to be rude and i might look ignorant but if so - im still incubating.

Excellent commentary, there are so many misleading publications of the Dao De Jing. Thank you for your critique.

Great video! I find myself returning to it as a guide to suitable English translations, even if I read classical Chinese. Your standard is really helpful in thinking about how to engage with this work: whether as an academic study or something more personally relevant.

Thank you

I read the actual Dao a long time ago and loved it. Then I started reading this garbage and returned it on Amazon. I was so glad to find this video.

Thanks! Exactly the kind of summary I was looking for. I went for the 1993 version 😊

feel sorry for you man..

9:50 I'm surprised you left out grass script.

The Apostle Paul said "we grieve, but not as the world grieves".

Nietzsche awoke to reality? I am asleep or pretending to be to avoid conflict in my family. I am a coward.

Classical Chinese should be spoken by Hokkien or Cantonese. It is because Cantonese is a pretty old language that hasn’t by those Mongolians changed. Now those Mandarin are Mongolian-changed, but not Cantonese and also Hokkien.

Necropolitics has been democratized, in more ways than one.

How is Heidegger’s being-towards-death different (or the same) as Schopenhauer’s discussion of death?

Some recommendations for research (not philosophy but worth to check out) youtube.com/@ancientamericas?si=zJ9cVFUiQ1ORicUY Learning Mesoamerican histories and all their cultures youtube.com/@benebellwen?si=5upbBDhHryIP0KMn Learning about eastern (specificly chinese) beliefs youtube.com/@theesotericachannel?si=7Czvl2C4LkrnNUxJ For academic understanding of beliefs like mysticism and of course...christianity history Apparently, Utube today recommended a good high quality finding for me. Indeed, whenever I searched for a much more concrete thing, the displays always with shallower knowledges. Which is why I had to dissect on whichever videos that had a more meaty works so that Utube algorithm at last favour me to take those dishes. True be told yet that I do find it challenging to watch some of them (either the terminologies unusual for my small brain or that my attention span getting worst). Hence, exercising the discipline seemed to be my homework also for finding best resources.

The Goat

The Ziporyn, Yang, Lynn, Hinton, and Fischer translations are good. I’ve read excerpts from Moeller and he does good as well. I’ve heard that LaFargue and Lau are excellent translations. I actually enjoy reading the Classical Chinese more than I do any translation. That way I can see for myself what the text has to say. I’d recommend that people read various translations rather than picking just one. No single translation can do the Laozi justice because there is so much depth to it. In another video, you asked whether people would be interested in hearing an assessment of Hoff’s translation. I would be very interested, given the bizarre claims Hoff makes about his translation and how they demonstrate the kind of arrogance that the Laozi condemns.

Good job mannn😊😊😊

The absorption and emission of light is spontaneous, continuous change! The continuous movement of positive and negative charge, Union of Opposites!

Thank you so much for the great video!

You are glossing over the cessation of rebirth bit when attaining nirvana. Sure, the ending of dukkha and desire is all fine and dandy, but it also necessarily means that you become "shunya" (zero). You lose your sense of self, you lose this world when you die. You will never be reborn again, therefore for all purposes you are attaining non-existence. I think it is fair to call this nihilistic (world-rejecting).

Socrates was sus

For me, the Dao is ...

japanese is closer to turkish than it is to Chinese

Dao4 de3 jing1 that is popularized I heard does not jive with older versions that had been unearthed recently. They are suspecting that the current popularized version of Dao De Jing was edited by Confucian scholars to suit to their taste. Laozi and Confucius do not share philosophy at all. Confucius just wanted to be a bureaucrat but Laozi wanted to flow with nature. Confucius is proactive and Laozi is not. He recommended non-interference or no unnecessary interference. Laozi is a minimalist. The current popular printed version of Dao De Jing should not be trusted.

Very good video. I heard about a so called "School of Yin Yang" born also in that Warring States period. ¿Have you heard of it? I wonder if you can make a video about it.

Great job

My favorite translations, from someone who doesn't read Chinese but can appreciate those who engage with the text in a respectful manner: Jonathan Star, Ames and Hall, Ellen Chen, and Derek Lin.

I cringe every time I see someone quoting Mitchell's TTC. More than once I've seen someone quoting Laozi and thinking it was one of the frequent misquotes floating around online, until I double-checked and realized it came from Mitchell. In Christian circles, there's a very loose paraphrase of the Bible called The Message, which most commentators advise people to stay far away from, because the text is so far removed from the original that it confuses the message at best and misrepresents it at worst. Mitchell's book is sort of like a Taoist version of The Message.

Ziporyn, Lynn, and Moeller (who I have read excerpts of) are great. I will be reading Yang Peng’s and Paul Fischer’s translations, both of which I expect to be very good because they are actually scholars. As far as the duds, Jonathan Star’s translation is quite bad, but doesn’t seem as bad as Mitchell’s. John Heider’s version is even worse than Mitchell’s (truly terrible to behold). I find it very helpful to be able to read Classical Chinese and thus see for myself how close a translation is to the original. My knowledge of the language isn’t perfect, but I’m a lot more confident and at ease reading it than I was in the beginning (when reading was frustrating and even anxiety inducing). I enjoy puzzling over issues of how passages should be best translated, given the ambiguity of the Daodejing and the challenging aspects of Classical Chinese grammar. Chapter 60, which seems to contradict itself, is a good example of how translation can be a puzzle in its own right.

This is why Heidegger matters. Thank you.

So good

Is it me or is his voice magical?

As a former Greek Orthodox priest and a student of apophasis in that tradition, this was a wonderful superb video. One cannot read the Tao Te Ching and not wonder if these words did not touch that other master in the Levant.

As a Christian and maybe a naturally overoptimistic person, I see evidence that 'God works all things for the good of those who love him,' as a promise. With every potentially devastating blow, I see an opportunity for God to wow me once more with how he makes beauty from ashes.

So meta! Just knowing that a bunch of us humans invest in exploring philosophical thoughts backed by our own life experiences is so heart warming and exciting.

The mountain in your logo all a sudden popped out among the water after this episode! : ) Thank you for creating these timeless content.

be here now do no harm help others be still close eyes listen to your breathing.

I can't believe he got away with "Live Laugh Loving" the literal dao de jing...

The correct stroke order for 回 ends with the bottom line; outside to inside is a good rule, but a huge exception is that you have to fill the box before you close it (closing on the bottom of course). That said, great video. I’d love to take a look at the ancients and the resources mentioned here sound pretty tempting. 謝謝你

Youre more in love with pedantic details than the truth of the dao de jing itself

Daoism and Libertarianism does share a lot of parallels e.g. with its critique on authority, and focus on the individual. You are spot on in pointing out certain pitfalls that can arise from these similarities. Excellent video. It was commented elsewhere that Liberalism could be compatable with Daoism. I think a main difference between the two is that Liberalism is not shy about politics and governance in the way Daoism is. I personally think there is merit to associating the two, but I respect the perspective that calling Daoism as "laissez-faire" is a bit of a stretch due to its apolitical tradition.

Thank you